The Law of Inheritance from the Mitacshara Translated by H.T. Colebrooke with an Appendix containing A Table of Succession and a Collection of Precedents from the Decisions of the Privy Council on India Appeals and of the Three Presidencies and an Index by A Pleader of the High Court

H. T. COLEBROOKE in his Preface to the nvo Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritawalkthus speaks of the work of VIJNYANESWARA :- The range of its authority and influence is far more extensive than that of JIMIITAVAHANA'S treatise (the Dyablictga) ; for it is received in all the Schools of Hindu Law from Benares to the Southern extremity of the Peninsula of India as the chief ground of the doctrin [...] perty ; and they will become relative to the religious ceremony through the medium of goods adapted to the performance of the ceremony ; as the husing of grain which effects the 'removal of the chaff concerns the religious - ceremony through the medium of clean rice which is adapted to the cermony. [...] " The portion deducted for the eldest is the twentieth part of the heritage with the best of all the chattels; for the middlemost half of that ; for the youngest a quarter of it."f 5. The term " either " ( § 1 ) is relative to the subsequent alternative " or all may be equal sharers." ANNOTATIONS. [...] Thus the mention of certain reasons in some texts and the omission of them in others are suitable : for the extinction of the temporal affections and the other assigned reasons indicate the single circumstance of the father's want of uncontrolled power ; since it is easy to establish that single foundation of the texts. [...] I. father and mother : The portion deducted for the eldest is the twentieth part of the heritage with the best of all the chattels ; for the middlemost half of that ; for the youngest a quarter of it.*" The twentieth part of the whole amount of the property (to be divided f) and the best of all the chattels must be given (by way of deductiont.) to the eldest ; half of that or a fortieth part a